Is there anything that ignites more possibility than a train station? Multiple tracks fan out in each direction, endless lines that connect here to somewhere. Passengers bustle about, stocking up on pastries while scanning boards for routes, timings, and platform changes. Train travel is more tactile than air travel, a legitimate passing through rather than flying over. I love it.

I am a huge fan of public transport. With few exceptions, when we travel as a family we opt for taking the local bus, train, tram, metro, U-Bahn, or the equivalent over a taxi. Yes, it’s sometimes more frustrating and takes longer. We’ve missed routes, been delayed, carried luggage up and down stairs, and ran to a new platform in the nick of time. We’ve smooshed onto busses we had no business being on with that amount of kids and bags. We’ve been fined for not buying the right ticket and have lost our tempers–and once, almost a bag. Never a child.

Why?

Busses, trams, trains, and subways are the lifeblood of a city, pulsating in every direction while carrying people through its beating heart. This network–marked by colors, letters, numbers, routes, and stops–fuels each person’s daily rhythm. Often, like blood that surfaces only when wounded, it isn’t noticed or appreciated until there’s a problem. But, it’s always there, running through us. In us. Connecting us.

There are three things that immediately ground me after landing somewhere new: riding public transport, exploring the city on foot, and grocery shopping. The latter two are subjects for another day, but let’s unpack the first.

I’m guessing some might be intimidated by local transport in a new city, especially when signage is in an unknown language. Figuring out routes, which side of the road to stand on, how to purchase tickets, tapping or validating when entering, and how to signal a stop can be a bit daunting. We’ve had our moments over the years, no doubt, but I love the thrill of it.

Currently, I’m in Warsaw, and I have been getting acquainted with this vibrant city. After half of our first day on foot, we needed to take a bus. I downloaded the correct app, scanned the QR code as we entered, and off we went. Since then, I’ve taken multiple trains, busses, and trams. I’ve deciphered how to validate, when to buy ahead, determined ticket duration, which stop to get off at, which direction to go, and how quickly people stand up before exiting. It’s all a sort of game I enjoy playing.

Mostly, though, I observe. I watch a young man carry an empty flower bed, long bulbs, and potting soil off of the bus. I notice spry grandmothers, young parents with strollers, suited professionals, friends, lovers, and colleagues. I stand next to man with a grocery bag bulging with fresh mushrooms that dripped a bit of earth as he left.

Those are the glimpses into everyday life that are easy to miss from an Uber.

I’m convinced that our daily interactions while doing the mundane necessities of life bind us together as families, communities, and humanity.

It’s brushing shoulders while holding on as the bus lurches around a sharp corner. It’s the woman who gently grabs a steadying elbow while exiting the large step from the train, or the young girl who asks me–in Polish first, then English–if this is the correct platform. Neither of us know for certain, but we laugh a bit and hope. Turns out it’s indeed my train, not hers, and she runs to find hers.

I was quite proud of my efforts to take a day trip to Kraków so I could visit the historic “Wieliczka” Salt Mine. It involved precise timings of multiple busses and intercity trains with several stops. Had I not been willing to figure it out, I would have missed what became one of my favorite days. It doesn’t work perfectly every time, but I am willing to risk inconvenience for possibility.

I admit I’m also quite proud of my children’s abilities to navigate public transit. Drop them in any city, including their own, and they will successfully figure out how to get from point A to B. I currently live in a city with semi-limited options, but since my new driving daughter and I share a car, one or the other of us often rides the bus. Her bus pass is one of her valued possessions, right next to her library card. Mine too. We kind of have an unwritten family rule that before they drive, they need to put in due time on busses for a good year or two first.

There was a fascinating silent film I watched at the Warsaw Rising Museum. The museum honors those who fought and died for independent Poland. This particular documentary, out of the way and largely unnoticed, touched me. Warsaw Sunday showed video clips of everyday life in Warsaw in 1938. The caption said, “the camera follows residents relaxing in parks, strolling through the streets, visiting cafes, and enjoying attractions along the Vistula. It records everyday scenes, fashions, modes of transport, and urban architecture, creating a remarkable portrait of pre-war Warsaw–a city full of energy, modernity, and diversity.” How soon their lives would be altered, lost, and their city destroyed. This footage captured the heaven of normal.

The day to day is the essence of life. There’s no shortcut to genuine interaction with those around us. The shorter, easier route isn’t always the best one.

Having recently read Theo of Golden by Allen Levi along with millions of others, I am touched by Theo’s genuine interest, curiosity, and kindness towards the people who come into his life. This gift of a book weaves their stories together in a way that inspires me to be a better human.

Let’s not shy away from the quest to figure out new things, be ignited by possibilities that fan out in every direction, and treasure the relationships that mean we’re alive. Let’s live in and master our day to day.

Better run, I’m off to catch my bus.

I’m just so sad. Frustrated. Angry. Empty. I feel tears start to well up while writing this first sentence and I take a deep breath. Perhaps there’s a rule–like don’t go to bed angry or don’t send the email when you’re upset–but still I keep typing. Vulnerability is the beating pulse of writing and if we strip emotion away, all that’s left is a veneer of hollow, empty words.

Every day, today included, there is another reminder of the seismic disruption of our family’s life as we knew it. Two weeks ago it was the email with shocking bittersweet news. Yesterday, it was the form I needed to sign that about undid me. Three days ago it was the webinar town hall that made me want to throw my phone out of the car window during school drop off. Today, it’s hauling a used dining room table across town so we have somewhere to sit. Tomorrow, it’s moving into the house we own but have never lived in. Always, it’s the decisions handed down that are beyond my control or what feels like reason. I don’t speak freely about those. I can’t. But I have THOUGHTS.

Every day, today included, I have a choice: How will I respond?

This weekend marked six months since Christopher and I found ourselves on a stopover in Abu Dhabi en route to our home in Riyadh. As we admired one of the Swarovski crystal chandeliers in a side foyer of the Sheikh Zayed Grand Mosque, air sirens started and we received an alert on our phones: take shelter from an immediate missile threat. As we calmly but quickly made our way out, a drone directly above us was intercepted, fanning out plumes of white smoke.

February 28, 2026, altered life for us and for the entire region.

The past six months have been grueling in ways I can’t fully express. The administrative and logistical nightmares, extended separation, roller coaster ride of attacks and attempted diplomacy, and the mind-numbing uncertainty. Emotional whiplash continues and it hurts being yanked from one unexpected turn to the next.

The question remains: how will I respond? It’s one we all must answer.

On Thursday, Addie and I attended her Back to School night at my request. It’s my last one and it mattered to me. She is attending the same high school my parents attended together in the 1960s. A new building is being constructed in the parking lot, but for now, these are the same halls my parents walked, the same stage my dad performed on, and some of the same signage still hangs. The stairs carry indents from decades of footprints. My parents fell in love here and now we walk these halls on the way to Concurrent Enrollment English 1010 and AP U.S. History.

Afterwards, Addie and I enjoyed a nice dinner overlooking the Salt Lake Valley to celebrate her new driver’s license and successful school start. We reflected on some things we have learned and came up with three things each that we were looking forward to. Both of us are digging deep to make this next year work.

Recent events have directly impacted us financially, logistically, and emotionally. It’s hard to wrap my brain around it, let alone my heart. In the ups and downs since this started, this has felt like a bottoming out. A kicking while down. Tears readily flow.

It’s not just me. The world feels heavy. Tragic flooding in our beloved Nepal and elsewhere. Friends grieving the loss of a child, a struggling newborn born with a rare condition, a terminal diagnosis. People near and far are carrying big loads.

But, I know for me and I trust for each of them, oh how there have been blessings.

The talk with a friend who reminded me of truths I need to hear. Those who are helping me clean the house, haul the stuff, and handle the things. So many offers of love and support in ways I can’t name. The prayers. Proximity to each of my children I don’t normally have. And upcoming Fall.

It’s been five years since we’ve had a proper Fall and I’m looking forward to it. Winter, not so much, but Fall feels like a refreshing breath of air that my soul needs. A restart, a settling. Trader Joes. Hiking. Leaves.

For now, I focus on each task at hand and this week will be one that requires all the strength I can muster. And–like so many times before–strength I will receive, along with peace, perspective, and guidance.

A poet relative of mine, Emma Lou Thayne, penned these words to a hymn entitled, “Where Can I Turn for Peace?”

…Where is my solace
When other sources cease to make me whole?
When with a wounded heart, anger, or malice,
I draw myself apart,
Searching my soul?
…Where is the quiet hand to calm my anguish?
Who, who can understand?
He, only One.
…He answers privately,
Reaches my reaching

I love that last phrase: reaches my reaching. We don’t have to have all the answers in order to reach towards heaven. A God who cares, or whoever that may look like to you, reaches us there. Our reaching is enough to connect.

So, how will I respond? And, more importantly, who do I want to be in all of this?

One who doesn’t stop reaching.

I don’t want to miss the undeniable blessings being poured out, the answers that come, or my desperate reliance on strength beyond my own.

Today, my brother Noah would have turned 48 if he hadn’t left us too soon. I’m remembering him, his way with people, his mischievous smile, and the way he welcomed others in. I miss him. For him, today I recommit to living and to noticing the beautiful despite the pain.

To Noah. To all of us who are facing hard things. To a fractured world filled with broken hearts. Let’s keep reaching, loving, welcoming, and becoming. Otherwise, we’re left only with sadness, anger, and empty words on the pages of our lives. We must keep writing.

When I left my house in Riyadh on the morning of March 8 to catch an evacuation flight out, there was no reason to think I wouldn’t eventually return. Still, I paused, turned around, and breathed it all in: the white frangipani blossoms, the entry stairs I’d sit on many mornings talking to my kids or parents in the U.S., the hole Biscuit dug in the grass before he knew better, the ping pong table Yared and I played on during our lunch break, and the way the desert concrete facade glows.

Like Orpheus in Hadestown or Lot’s wife from Genesis, maybe I shouldn’t have looked back. They had their reasons, I had mine. I didn’t want to forget what it felt like to be forced to leave my home or the strength it took to walk away.

Now, five months later with no end in sight, I have accepted that I won’t be going back–not soon, likely not ever–because of Operation Epic Fury. Or whatever we’re calling this. It certainly feels like fury.

Shortly before catching our airport bus at an undisclosed location, I took a short walk on the DQ trail to clear my mind. This photo captures the bags under my eyes from many nights of little sleep due to incoming drone alerts and my forehead wrinkles that carried the weight and worry of it all. My hair was drying in the dusty wind as I carved out a few minutes to process and to prepare. A slight quarter-smile was all I could muster.

I often walked that trail above Wadi Hanifa with Biscuit. It was an oasis for me, a sacred space to pour out my heart towards heaven, to seek answers, and to listen. I rarely passed anyone in the early hours, especially during the hot months. Then, one morning, I encountered a pack of wild wadi dogs that appeared without warning. They were bloodthirsty and charged towards us. Utterly exposed in the desert landscape, I did the only thing I could think of: I yanked Biscuit up off of the ground and held him like a baby. My mother instinct took over as I shouted, kicked, and ordered them to move on. We were unharmed, but my sense of calm was shattered. From then on, I carried a few big stones to use as deterrents.

Like a pack of wild dogs, plot twists have a way of approaching from seemingly nowhere, altering our sense of normalcy, exposing our deepest vulnerabilities, and causing us to re-calibrate our plan. We all face them: an untimely death or diagnosis, the loss of a relationship or job, a struggling loved one.

How, then, do we gather our rocks and navigate whatever threatens to destroy us? I have spent two decades and 80,000 words exploring how we do this when it really matters. Can we cultivate home–and stability, family relationships, faith–literally anywhere? And in whatever landscape we find ourselves?

Now’s my chance, yet again, to practice.

We have now accepted the heart-wrenching reality that Addie and I will remain in Salt Lake City, where she will attend her senior year at our local high school, we will move in to a house we own but have never lived in, and Christopher will complete his assignment in Riyadh until next summer. We will continue to grieve what has happened and what we thought this year would look like, while embracing the opportunities and challenges in store.

How’s your summer going?

It’s a question I get asked frequently, often in small talk while in line, or sometimes by friends who really want to know. Never before has it been so difficult to answer.

Like a blister that isn’t visible but incredibly painful, our situation festers. It is irritated by updates of escalation and at times, it has bled tears. I can cover it with a bandage, but with no end in sight it just keeps rubbing and can’t heal. It will eventually scab over, but there will be scars.

I’ve written some here and there, but mostly I’ve been processing. Grieving. Pivoting. Handling the things and connecting with the people who are right in front of me. Like footprints washed away in a soft tide, my muddled thoughts dissolve as quickly as they appear. Conversations are choppy. I’m still not sleeping well, my eating routines are off, and I’m struggling to reclaim solid ground.

Still, I have plans! I aim to publish my book, expand my work, and connect with others in meaningful ways. More to come on that. But, for now, I pause. Reflect. Gather my stones. Dig deep and reach inward, outward, heavenward.

I miss my husband, who is working around the clock in Riyadh and carrying a load beyond what a person should have to. Addie misses her dad. The other kids we would normally be far from are now near, and we’re all realigning. We aren’t wired to do life apart, especially for endless months on end. Have we? Yes. Can we? Yes. Do we want to? No. Families, by definition, are designed to be together.

We also miss our stuff. We have been living out of a suitcase, thrifting a few things, and buying the bare minimum as needs arise. But it’s more than that.

The things we touch and use and wear on a daily basis are tangible proof of our existence. They are companions in the smallest minutia of our lives, wallflowers to core memories, and bystanders to the meals we share and connections we make. Without them, who are we?

Daily, I will miss the blue Le Creuset cast iron my mom and late aunt Connie gave me for my birthday. I will sorely miss my KitchenAid, BlendTec, and InstantPot. Sure, we can replace most things, but there’s a hole where the familiar used to be, a new pattern and rhythm to be learned. In December, I will mourn the lack of our global collection of Christmas decorations, including our newest handmade creche that had just arrived from our friend in Sweden.

Addie feels the loss of her belongings deeply. The room she left is frozen in time with the bedsheets rumpled, towel on the floor, clothes askew, and familiar things on the nightstand and wall. It remains empty, covered in dust. In saying that, I’m keenly aware that some people face that and oceans more in losing a child, a spouse, a parent. Addie’s room doesn’t have her in it, but thankfully our lives still do.

Addie beautifully drew and posted the following haunting insights:

i miss my stuff.

the things i miss are so much more than pieces of paper that stain my wall. they are my life. my friends. my memories.

i have forgotten what was on my wall back home. one that i used to stare at all the time, and now i don’t know if i’ll ever see it again. i would never have forgotten what i so carefully hung up.

to leave is not to forget.

~ Artwork and caption by Adelaide Patch
(@crafty.addieee, used with permission)

We’ve gone months, even years without our things before, but that was a calculated choice. There was a sorting, decisions, piles. It’s amazing what you grab–and what you don’t–when forced to flee quickly for an unspecified timeframe.

I write this from the porch of a 1924 bungalow my brick mason great-great-grandfather built. I have pictures of my grandpa in uniform leaving for the Navy from this very porch. The sky is now alive with color and the cool breeze carries the smell of summer rain and thunder. These bricks have weathered every storm and so will I.

Yes, there will be more tears, anger, and sadness: for us, for our many friends and colleagues facing unbearable decisions and workloads, and mostly for the region as a whole. I still look back to process the grief, loss, and trauma we have experienced. But, I’m not stuck there. I am filled with peace looking ahead. Even in the uprooting of familiar things and routines, and in the painful separation from each other, we are repotted into new containers that make way for growth. We will be home because we are home.

This week my daughter Bronte turned 22. She’s an amazing human I am so grateful to have in my life. We made our traditional ebelskivers, small Danish pancake balls, in the pan I gifted her for graduation just like Mom gifted me mine. It’s the way of things. Their familiar smoky aroma filled the air and we dunked them in applesauce and fresh maple syrup. Bronte’s special day marks 6 of 6 family birthdays we’ve now celebrated during these crazy times.

In the wee hours of Ravi’s birthday in early March, two drones struck the Riyadh Embassy a few blocks from our house. Two weeks later after a late night Walmart run, we honored Yared’s birthday from an Airbnb we just arrived at in our “safehaven” of Salt Lake City. Christopher spent his birthday in late March working around the clock, still in Riyadh, and we wished him well from afar while kind friends took him a cake. Addie crafted all of the decor for her birthday mid April–stars, paper chains, a sign–and we celebrated wearing stapled crowns, wondering when we’d be able to return to our home and life in Saudi Arabia. She woke up before breakfast to take an exam while she tried to stay afloat in remote school. For my birthday in early May, number 5 in our lineup, a new booking forced us out of our Airbnb and we scrambled to find a new one.

Now, for birthday 6 of 6, given the events that continue to unfold, our situation feels as uncertain as ever.

Throw in an anniversary, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, and Independence Day…and it feels like a large chunk of our year has been spent separated as a family and in limbo. Living in daily uncertainty is extremely taxing. Exhausting. We have been living out of a single suitcase each, wearing the same clothes, and thrifting the bare minimum. We do not know what the future holds.

Do we ever? Two days ago I attended a funeral of the 22-year-old son of dear friends who went to sleep feeling ill and never woke up. He died on a regular Friday, garbage day, with his car keys still in his pocket. I left his service wanting to be better, to love better, to cherish life in a way he no longer can.

Due to the Gulf region’s ongoing conflict, my family is now faced with some difficult decisions. Christopher and I have spent hours on FaceTime talking through options. We’ve had many conversations with Addie, mapping out what she wants her upcoming senior year to look like given the current scenarios. Do we return to Riyadh when allowed–even if it means missing a chunk of school–to her friends, theater production of Les Mis she’s been preparing for, our things, reunite our family after many months, and ride the roller coaster of conflict? Or, do we decide to stay where we are, get her driver’s license, keep her job, enroll in the local high school, separate our family, and start all over–but have more stability and control? I feel we are choosing the best of the worst options and none of this is what we wanted.

Yet, there’s great power in the choosing, to stop basing our family’s sanity on the headlines of the day and make a decision–even a heart-wrenching one–ourselves.

In a region-wide town hall with leadership last week, a high-ranking official reminded us that we signed up for this. “It’s not easy, but it’s what we do.” While he may not have won compassion points, he’s not wrong. He continued: It isn’t our first crisis and won’t be our last. He thanked us for our patience, resilience, and support of each other. “That’s the true strength of the Foreign Service: our communities pull together in times of crisis.”

Yes, we did sign up for this career 21 years ago and have made the choice to serve in often unstable or dangerous circumstances around the world. It is a decision we continue to make, to stay. But this–this–we didn’t sign up for. And yet, here we are.

There is a scene in the new Netflix version of Little House on the Prairie when after wagon travel and near death while crossing a river, the Ingalls arrive at the grassy nothing-but-field and Pa asks, “Well, what do you think?” Ma answers, “My sister said I was a fool to leave everything and everyone I ever knew and follow you into the dark. But here we are.” Pa replies, “Here we are.”

I’ll write more soon about what this next year is going to look like for our family. For now, I’m processing. Pivoting. Deeply sad that it has come to this. At the same time, there is much good. Yet again, I hold grief in one hand and gratitude in another, trusting that in my soul’s economy, both are essential currency.

This morning I walked through the gorgeous Albion Basin up Little Cottonwood Canyon. The hike began in a dense green forest, scattered with just a few flowers. Up the trail further, the trees opened up, revealing a colorful quilt of flowers spread across the vast meadow. On my way down, I saw a woman near the start of the trail, taking a picture of herself with a small cluster of flowers. “Just you wait,” I wanted to say. “You have no idea of the splendor yet ahead. Keep going. Its unexpected beauty will astound you.”

What if we turn around too soon and miss the very experiences we came for?

“The best is yet to come...”

~ Pres. Russell M. Nelson

Yes, life may try to break us, but we can indeed fill the cracks with strength. Community. Faith. Resilience. Kindness. Trust in a bigger plan. And we can honor those who have passed by treasuring each day we get to walk on this beautiful planet, whatever it brings.

The last time I visited Zion National Park was on a sunny but crisp afternoon in December of 2023. My extended family had gathered for the funeral of my aunt Connie, and we spent a week before Christmas at an Airbnb playing pickleball, trading Bingo white elephant prizes, and claiming favorites from some of Connie’s bags, jackets, and earrings. We leisurely chatted along the Riverside Walk that paralleled the Virgin River and ended at the Narrows. If I knew it was the last time with my brother, Noah, I would have walked slower. Linked my arm through his. Listened to his voice with my eyes closed so I would never, ever forget. He passed away the following November.

Christopher and I were recently able to slip away for two days to Zion and celebrate our belated 28th wedding anniversary. In early March, we last hugged each other outside of a line of busses that took Yared, Addie, and I to a chartered evacuation flight out of Riyadh to the U.S. Through the rainy window, we waved goodbye as Christopher stayed on as part of a small team to keep things running. It’s such a blessing he’s been able to come visit for two weeks, and we have loved being together with each of our four children.

As we sat around the fire pit, cradled in the stunning embrace of the towering red and white sandstone cliffs, we remembered growing up nearby and how much has changed since. How much we have changed.

We spent our middle and high school years in nearby St. George, Utah, and would drive to Zion on many casual afternoons. Passing the gem and wind chime shops in Springdale, we drove right into Zion and parked anywhere. We even swam in the Emerald Pools, which is strictly off limits now (was it then, too?). Now, there is a long line for the required no-emissions shuttle into the park. Zion gets 5M+ visitors each year and it’s for the best to limit traffic, even though it’s more complicated. Hiking the Narrows used to be something everyone figured out on their own, and now we passed hundreds of visitors wearing neoprene socks, canyoning boots, and carrying long wooden sticks to gauge uneven depths and currents. The last three decades is all a blink of an eye to the millions of years these canyon walls have seen.

Breathing in the fresh air of such beautiful surroundings calmed our hearts. We dreamed and planned, and he encouraged me to keep writing and not give up. We also talked through the uncertainty and hardship of our current situation, and threw around contingency plans and predictions. Major parts of our lives are completely out of our control right now and it has taken a toll on each of us. Still, we tried to turn outward, upward, forward.

When we first arrived in March, I bought a 40-lb. bag of Kirkland dog food for Biscuit and wondered how I’d pack up all the extra in my suitcase when we returned. I figured we wouldn’t be here long enough to use it all. Last week we ran out.

Addie and I are not allowed to return to Riyadh until we get the green light, and the news seems to have a new take every day on when that will be feasible. How many more 40-lb. bags will Biscuit go through until we can return home?

Today we sent Christopher back to Riyadh and we have no idea when we’ll see him again. The soonest would be another month or two. The longest…I can’t think about that. He took a quiet moment with each of the kids last night or this morning. Hearts were tender and tears fell.

It hurts me to breathe. If I stop for too long, the pain starts to creep up, my eyes get watery, and my insides churn. So I don’t stop, not yet. I’ll take some quiet time later, but for now I just keep going, keep moving. Empty the dishwasher. Feed Biscuit. Stop at Trader Joes.

“Anything fun planned for today?” the clerk asks.

“Umm, no,” I answer. “Just trying to get through.”

Later an A/C technician stops at our Airbnb to service the unit. “How’s your day going so far?” he asks cheerily.

“Great,” I lie. I spared him the details.

I don’t like that we’re in this situation, that the world feels in turmoil, or that people are suffering tragedies far greater than being separated, living in limbo, or facing the unknown. We didn’t choose to be evacuated nor did we choose how long this is lasting. We don’t like the complete frustration and madness of trying to keep school afloat for Addie or the impossible decisions still ahead of us. But, here we are beginning month four, trying to focus on the positive – and there have been so many blessings in all of this – and we keep going. Being near all four of my children has been a gift I will treasure always.

I turn heavenward for peace and find strength beyond my own. My faith is a grounding force in my life that steadies me. I read somewhere that the droplets that seeped through and fell on my face from the massive Weeping Rock alcove first fell as rain 1,000+ years ago and have been percolating through the porous sandstone ever since. What a beautiful thought. I wonder if my silent tears – if yours for the heavy things you carry – were somehow orchestrated through the eternities, earmarked and curated as proof of the very experiences that shape us. Tears that prove that we lived, that we loved, and that we still stand.

It’s felt like an entire lifetime since I last wrote. I am still processing the events on and since Feb. 28: stuck in the UAE away from our kids as strikes began, stressful land border crossing into Saudi when airspace closed, our Riyadh embassy being attacked that very night, getting evacuated out of Saudi to the U.S., and the intense sadness I continue to feel for the entire region. I will write about it, yes, but not yet.

For now, let’s go back to a happier time mid-February.

Christopher and I returned to India as part of a tour group led by a friend. We studied the beauty of several world religions and even though we had been to most of the sites before, we loved watching our new friends fall in love with India.

One of my highlights was swerving in a cycle rickshaw through the narrow lanes of Old Delhi’s Chandni Chowk just like we had done exactly 25 years before on my very first trip to India. As we passed piles of sugarcane and sneakers, fabrics and coconuts, cell phone covers and street food, the years dissolved and we were childless young marrieds again. Clinging to each other and holding on for dear life.

“Has it changed much?” several people asked us as we re-visited places we knew from that first visit, a few since, and from when we lived for three years in Mumbai.

As we explored again the Lotus Temple, Sikh Temple Gurudwara Bangla Sahib, Ganges River in Varanasi, Amber Fort in Jaipur, and of course the Taj Mahal in Agra–to name a few–I noticed some upgrades to facilities, but the sites themselves hadn’t changed much.

“Not really,” I replied. “But we sure have.”

Full-circle moments give us space to reflect. Who have I become during the past 25 years since I first smelled the sweet burning ash along the Ganges at sunrise and placed my small lamp in its waters?

I’ve had the privilege to visit the Taj Mahal multiple times over the years with different groupings of friends and family. Each time I am filled with awe and wonder. This past visit in February, just us with no young children in tow, we walked slowly. We breathed it in, hand in hand, while we admired its inlaid stones and shimmering marble just like we have done with our children at various ages. It truly is a magnificent building and tribute.

Unexpectedly, I’ve been living another full-circle moment for the past six weeks. In mid-March, the kids and I were required to leave our home in Riyadh and we have been safehavening in Utah. Finding somewhere to stay that was within our budget, desired location, allowed a dog, and was willing to work with our unknown timeframe proved challenging.

In the entire Salt Lake valley, the Airbnb we chose is a short walk from the home I grew up in. We have walked Biscuit many evenings to Sage Hill Drive, noting the cottonwood tree that was removed, sidewalks I learned to ride my banana bike on, the path my Kindergartner feet trudged to Hillview Elementary, and the rock Dad sat on in his mask to scare trick-or-treaters. We have walked to the park where we sledded in winter and watched summer softball with Dad while grape snow cone juice dripped down my chin. Now, I sit with a grown son and Biscuit watching adult co-ed games. We’ve attended the same church congregation where I was baptized at age 8 and even recognized a few long-time neighbors there.

It’s surreal, really.

I am no longer a child, and now those who walk beside me are no longer children. Where do the ends of our paths lead? And who will be continue to become?

A few more full-circle moments have brought me pause. A son recently graduated from my alma mater (Latin for nourishing mother, how cool is that?) and I found myself getting teary as the organ swelled its Pomp and Circumstance March No. 1 in D and 6000+ graduates filed in. Earlier this week, I helped that son pick out a new suit from the same local store my Granny was connected to for several decades. I picked up a different son after work directly across from the apartments we lived in when we were first married. My daughter requested her birthday meal at the same diner I once toured on a field trip where we single-filed through its greasy kitchen and ate free burgers and fries. Daily, I drive by a different apartment where we brought home our first born from the hospital and walked its worn carpet during all hours of day and night. It was on that tube TV I learned of the events of Sept. 11 and that landline phone Christopher called to tell me he passed the final portion of the Foreign Service exam. The circle of life continues in the most random but beautiful ways.

I don’t know what all of this means. My heart still mourns the loss of my childhood home all those years ago. I’m not able to return to my current home in Riyadh for an unspecified time. I don’t know what’s ahead any more than I have figured out what’s behind me. I watch my children navigate their challenges and possibilities.

I continue to learn, especially when tested in times like these, that home really can be–and must be–anywhere.

When our current routines are suddenly upended, home somehow comes with us, not just in what we bring but who we have become. Even our temporary Airbnb has been a refuge in our current storm. Already, we have celebrated birthdays, filled out job applications, shared meals, played games across the table, attended virtual school and many meetings, and strategized next steps. Its floor has caught a few tears and its ceiling has heard many prayers.

I will always be grateful for the homes that have not only sheltered me, but formed me. When full-circle moments help me look back, I realize just how far I’ve come and who I still hope to be.

For not being a golfer, I’ve spent a lot of time on courses over the years while following my brother Noah, Dad, and grandparents. I’ve been to several Junior World and Junior Golf tournaments but never a professional one: until now. LIV Golf opened its 2026 debut in Riyadh with a splash last night and I wasn’t going to miss it. Something in me had to be there.

Dad has long told me how polarizing LIV Golf has been for players and fans, including most recently Brooks Koepka’s leaving LIV to return to the PGA and Patrick Reed also leaving LIV. Other former PGA players (Jon Rahm, Bryson DeChambeau, and Cameron Smith) were recently given the option to return, but opted to stay in LIV. We watched each play, and it was thrilling to be so close to the players, caddies, and cameras.

“Bryson is the man,” Dad said as he gave me the rundown on LIV’s team-based exhibition style and captains. “Be sure and look at a map and tee sheets.”

“And don’t you dare think it’s boring,” he told me. “Stand on a hole and watch several players come through. See how far they drive the ball. Look for Aramco’s long drive Hole 6. Par 5.”

True, that hole was very, very long.

Why do I care about any of this? For the same reason I took Yared to Riyadh SneakerCon last week. He has loved shoes since he lined them all up by the front door as a toddler. He has made them with duct tape, plastic, paper, and leather. He has studied brands and styles, read entire books, and can have long conversations on the artistry of a well-crafted shoe. He is too broke to be a collector, but he still appreciates that universe.

It’s a simple math problem for me. If my son loves shoes and I love my son, therefore I love shoes. If Dad and Noah love golf, and I love Dad and terribly miss Noah, I also love golf. One way to say I love you: this matters to me because you matter to me.

And that’s why on Hole Number One, as the clock ticked towards the 18:15 shotgun start, and music and lasers lit up the scene, I choked back dusty tears.

Noah left us over a year ago and we feel his loss deeply. He would have loved this course and the party-like vibe that is so different than U.S. golf culture (there’s even an afterplay concert each night that begins at 11:00p.m.). In my bag, I placed two reminders of Noah. One was a letter I wrote to him on June 5, 1995:

I’m sitting up late at night watching the rain. You just left after a video and you’re about to begin a summer of golf once again. I’m so proud of you for your hard work and accomplishments…I’m here for you anytime you need anything…Good luck this summer and I’ll be cheering you on in spirit.

I offered unsolicited sisterly advice, including not to do anything stupid and to just be smart, ok? With all of his moves and occasional homelessness, he kept that letter all this time.

I also threw in a few photos of him as a young Popeye, Superman, on the course with Mom and Dad, and messing around. I carried his memory along with me as we walked the front nine, and watched long drives and dropped putts.

Yes, tears of grief welled up in my eyes, but so did tears of gratitude as I tapped on my phone.

I messaged Mom and Dad, sending them photos and updates. Sharing that moment in real time with them reminded my heart how blessed I am to still have each of them respond.

“We saw you,” Dad said. “Were you following Bubba?”

Yes, we were, on Hole 4.

I don’t know how much longer we’ll have Mom and Dad any more than I know how long my walk on earth’s fairway will last. But, on this undulating desert course, I ride its waves of grief for what is lost and gratitude for what remains.

Feeling both somehow gives me clarity and strength as I cherish what’s been and create what is yet to come.

On a random Thursday night in September, I became a dog mom. The next morning, he had his own Instagram account.

Meet Biscuit, a rescue we took in from a Saudi family who needed to rehome him. He’s a playful Maltese mix who loves a good belly rub but hates being left alone. In just a few months he’s brightened our home with energy and life we didn’t know we needed.

Even when he digs up a spot in the yard, whines, or chews his blanket to smithereens (we’re working on it), it’s hard to stay mad for long. He loves so freely, greets so warmly, and provides comfort and structure we have come to rely on.

He’s also famous. To understand why, we need to discuss two things: Hadith and Kashtah.

Dogs have long been considered culturally and historically impure in Islam. Reasons are complex (e.g. as explored here, here, and here). Several hadiths (oral traditions and understanding based on narratives about the Prophet Muhammad’s life and sayings rather than theological Qur'an teachings) refer to dogs. Cats are beloved while dogs avoided, but times are shifting.

Which brings us to Kashtah, an Arabian-style desert picnic outing. Popular during cooler winter months, families and friends gather on carpets around bonfires for food, community, and nature. This generally happens away from the city in the desert, with a modern nod to Bedouin heritage, but we witness fireless variations of this in our neighborhood and it is a vibrant part of Saudi life to witness. One nearby park is listed on Google Maps as simply “oasis experience.”

Local families flock to our trail for a quiet sunset above Wadi Hanifa, a mostly dry 75-mile valley that runs through Riyadh. Such serenity is rare in this city of 8 million people that bustles with gridlocked traffic and sleek architecture. Numerous families and groups of friends enjoy Kashtah just steps from our home. I can’t blame them – it’s beautiful.

Enter Biscuit.

In other places we’ve lived like Frankfurt or Sydney, dogs are a ubiquitous part of life. They ride busses, frequent cafes, drink from communal water bowls, and are welcomed guests most everywhere. Here, Biscuit is a novelty. Every single night we walk along our trail he is treated like a rock star: both feared and adored. I hope it doesn’t go to his head and he’ll demand more treats.

Responses vary but are never indifferent. Young children start to cry and hide inside their mother’s flowing abaya. Women jump. Husbands protect. Grandmothers smile from a distance. Young adults giggle. Older children often send a brave representative to test the waters.

“What is its name?” one will timidly approach and ask. Soon the others, cowered nearby, begin to gather around Biscuit. Patient with his newest fan zone, he sits, stays, and waits while they attempt to pet him. Secretly, I think he loves celebrity life.

Those who haven’t been raised around canines often don’t know how to respect boundaries. Some come on too strong or completely surround Biscuit. If a man lingers too close to me, Biscuit pauses, growls, and then barks. So far, his judgement has been spot on. He’s got me, except when we encountered packs of wadi dogs and he leapt into my arms like a baby while I searched for the nearest rock to scare them off.

Biscuit, like any good diplomat, represents his kind to those who don’t yet understand. He builds bridges between people and cultures who otherwise may not intersect. He has opened the door for conversation and interactions I look forward to and we are all better for it.

I’m not a great dog mom, frankly, any more than I’m a great human mom, but I show up and do my best. I am proud of myself for being open to this new experience that has certainly complicated our lives but also enriched them. Like anything that stretches us, often against what makes logical sense, our capacity increases.

Next time I watch Biscuit patiently interact with his newest fans, I will remember to embrace new experiences, people, and cultures with kindness and not shy away from the unexpected.

We all know these famous lines of a poem properly titled “A Visit From St. Nicholas” that begins with this enchanting scene: “'Twas the night before Christmas…” Its attribution history is complex, originally credited to Clement Clarke Moore but leaning today towards Major Henry Livingston, Jr. This well-loved poem transferred the Dutch characterization of St. Nicholas into traits now beloved in the American Santa Claus. Find an adult or child who can’t quote some portion of it.

For me, I rest in the opening image of children all tucked in, dreaming in anticipation of what’s ahead.

I have been blessed to have all four of my children home for Christmas, and as I write this they are each sleeping soundly under my roof in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. It is an amazing feeling to go to bed and wake up knowing all are safe, fed, and cared for.

I’ve written before about this beautiful scene: all of our cups gathered in marking daily presence. Like each owner, these tumblers travel from table to counter, from here to there, but they always return for life-giving water. There is a space saved for each one. Each is known and cherished.

Soon, we will be down to just a few cups on the dispenser when our grown children fly back to their lives. They each have exciting changes and challenges ahead. As I hug them goodbye, stifling my tears and pride that want to pour out, I will feel the pain of separation every parent feels. Pain so real it hurts.

I didn’t know how hard it would be to mother across continents. Until recent years, to me this meant that I established home and family in new locations, shaking it up frequently. It was hard but we were a cluster, a group, one entity that comprises individual parts. Collectively, we did hard things. Now, our family’s dots on Find My are spread far. It’s both exciting and sad. For a time this summer, we spanned four continents.

Of course, I knew that one day my children would grow up and pursue dreams outside of the walls of our home, but somehow I didn’t think through what that actually looked like. Or how my heart would both burst and break when they did.

Slowly, one child at a time, they left, and I am relishing each drop in her pink cup that we have left with Addie.

For the others, gone is the time when I knew which day they had an exam, washed their dirty socks and lunchboxes, or made them meals that included colorful food groups. Now, I am thankful to hear from them at all, wonder if they own matching socks or eat any lunch, let alone a nutritious one. I drop everything when they call, thrilled to hear their voices and see their faces on the screen. My soul settles a bit just getting eyes on them. I listen to reports of the first day of classes, the pickup basketball game, the new ciabatta recipe. I cheer on new jobs, internships, fellowships, and hear iterations of an honors thesis.

When we do get to connect, usually in between classes, just before they go to bed, on a bus route, or in a Walmart aisle when they have a quick question about which crockpot ingredients to buy, I ask about roommates, work dynamics, professors, weekend plans. I resist the urge, some of the time, to ask what they’ve been eating, if they are planning to get a haircut, if they’ve gotten the driver’s side window unstuck before winter hits, and if they have enough in their account to make it through. My soul needs to know they are OK and I listen for any clues they give me.

Sometimes they’re not, and there are tears, questions, or hurt that distills through the airwaves. I listen and offer love and encouragement, while my brain scans flights for the quickest way I can get to them. I wouldn’t really get on a plane unless it was an emergency, but my heart wants to. Needs to. Goes there.

Being 7,500 miles away from my grown children means not being able to rescue them or solve their immediate needs. Sure, I can occasionally Door Dash chicken soup when they’re sick, give them a gift card for gas, order a Costco run of protein drinks during finals week, or send them flowers during a rough stretch. More often, I sit back while they figure it out, like adults do. Like I did.

Last night, we sat around the table after cheese and chocolate fondue and reflected. We pulled up photos from each month of 2025, remembered highs and lows, and envisioned what we hope to become in 2026. I hope it’s our best year yet, not because it will be free from struggle or distance, but because we have each other in it. Through it. Across it.

As I wash sheets, towels, restore order, and put away Christmas, I’ll save one task for the very end. In a quiet moment, I will walk over to the water dispenser and slowly reach for each empty cup. I will cradle it in my soapy fingers as I wash and dry. As I think of its owner, a flood of recent memories will fill my heart and I will carefully place it back in the cupboard until next time.

“What should we bring?” my friend asked many years ago when we invited her to celebrate her very first American Thanksgiving with us. We were living on the North Shore of Sydney and hosted around 40 people that year. One family was American, but most of our Sydneysider friends didn’t know what to expect.

“Just bring a favorite side dish,” I encouraged her. She brought rice pilaf.

We didn’t have the budget for the $80 tiny turkey from the specialty meat shop, so we roasted several chickens instead. Other staples were on display: gravy and mashed potatoes, pecan-topped sweet potatoes, stuffing, green beans, homemade rolls, and pumpkin pie I pureed myself.

“So, how does it all work?” another friend asked.

“Well, Thanksgiving is a nice holiday because it’s really just a time to gather with extended family and friends over good food. There’s not a lot of expectation other than to fill your plate and maybe share something you’re thankful for.”

“It sounds lovely,” she replied and it was. It still is.

Long before Kahoot!, we made a slideshow that year with Thanksgiving trivia to educate our guests on the holiday’s beginnings. Word searches, coloring pages, and crossword puzzles have been added in.

We have since celebrated Thanksgiving on multiple continents and in several cities. It represents everything I love: family, cultural connection, food, flavor, and exchanging traditions. The nice thing about Thanksgiving is anything works.

My kids usually don’t have school off that day (odd at American schools, I know) so we’ve learned to be very fluid on how and when we celebrate. Hot or freezing, cozy or arid, traveling or home, we always find a way to mark the occasion.

One thing that has become a sort of tradition despite all of the variables over the years, is gathering a wide variety of friends around our table. Far from extended family and with American friends usually hosting their own meals, this human mosaic has become the best part.

In Frankfurt, Thanksgiving was a regular school and work day, so we crowded a few friends into our tiny dining room and ate elbow to elbow, visiting until the windows were misty. We use the same table covering (the only one we own that fits the long table) that we bought in the sprawling Mercato open-air market in Addis Ababa two decades ago. I think it’s supposed to be a curtain or car cover and the edges aren’t finished, but it has cradled bamboo plates in Mumbai, my grandma’s china in Djibouti, and many sticky fingers grabbing for another roll. The last few years in Saudi Arabia, we joined with friends from the U.K., India, and the Philippines.

“I’m just so excited,” our U.K. friend. “I’ve never been to a real Thanksgiving before.”

We generally provide traditional Thanksgiving fixings (with turkey if we can find it, often ordering it months in advance) and encourage everyone to bring a favorite side dish from their home country. We’ve added curry, cauliflower cheese, momos, fruit platters, and stir fry to the spread.

For several years, I kept in the dining hutch drawer the place cards of guests to remind me of warm conversations and full bellies. Now, with most of our children grown and unable to make the trek home for Thanksgiving, it takes an intentional effort to gather. This year, it came full circle when our British friends hosted us in Abu Dhabi, meshing worlds and traditions. It was just beautiful.

Last Thanksgiving, I was in the U.S. to honor the life of my younger brother taken too soon. It was a tender reminder to hold our loved ones close and treasure the gift we call life.

I recently overheard a conversation from a philanthropist friend who said his mom always brought random people home for dinner, much like my aunt Connie did.

“I don’t know where she found these people,” he reflected. “I was eight before I realized I didn’t have a Nigerian uncle. He was at our house so much I thought we were related.”

It’s unknown what our children will someday say about us, but I hope they will treasure friendships in unexpected places, savor unanticipated flavors, and scooch in a little closer to make room for one more.

I recently spent a weekend in New York City for my second meetup with Lucinda Literary’s mastermind program I’ve been part of this year. Even though we had been meeting biweekly over Zoom, I was a bit nervous when we all first gathered in April. This time it was like a family reunion with my favorite people.

I’ve been part of many writing groups, cohorts, and classes during my time, but this has landed differently and I’ve been trying to decipher why. There are several factors, but one that stands out is that by now we know each other’s work inside and out. We’ve critiqued query letters, pitches, sample chapters, and book proposals. We’ve breathed encouragement during low points, celebrated wins, and guided each other through various iterations of the books we’re each writing. We’ve shed some tears through the screen and a few on real shoulders.

In NYC, we sat knee to knee inside the gorgeous River Club and offered and accepted specific feedback on our work. Industry professionals (publishers, editors, and agents) also gave us valuable guidance based on current trends and best practices. Detailed feedback as we workshopped was spot on and was exactly why I was there.

This stripped me down to my writing bones and undid me in the best way. Putting it all on the table and opening up my heart to this level of tough love is hard. Yet, there is something powerful in being known, to have a room full of accomplished people care enough to fuel me forward.

To be known. Is there anything more vulnerable? More beautiful?

Now that I have completed drafting my memoir manuscript and while I work through suggested edits and begin to query, I have asked a few beta readers for specific feedback. I was not prepared for how hard it would be to send them all 259 pages. One of them correctly assumed it must feel a little like letting a child leave home, to have my heart walk right out that Google Docs door. Yes. I know my book will not be for everyone, but for those who read it I hope it lands well. I hope they treat it–me, my life, my heart–with kindness.

Tough love is nothing new to teachers, leaders, or parents. It’s certainly not new to God. Throughout history, correction has shaped possibility.

There’s a lot in this world, in my family, and in my head to keep me up at night and occupy my many walks with our new rescue puppy, Biscuit. While he frolics and sniffs, wanders and romps, I wonder how everything can possibly turn for good. My husband is currently filling multiple positions, swamped and working like madness, all for no pay during our home government’s shutdown. My children face challenges, uncertainty, big decisions, and opportunities. My parents are weathering the storms of age. In a few days it will be one year since we lost my little brother Noah. Like Riyadh’s constant construction dust, how can everything settle and sit despite upheaval?

It will because it must.

We don’t often trust our hearts to a safe cohort who knows us and cares enough to help us grow, but we do get to cultivate relationships with each other and with heaven in ways that strengthen us.

Someday, hopefully sooner than later, you may read my story and see in it your own. You will feel me carry my hard things and you will think of yours. As you watch faith, family, and community ground me across borders, you will remember what grounds you. Through a lens into my home, you will long for yours.

Can’t wait to share it with you!

We’ve been in Riyadh for two months and just this last week our house feels like home. It’s a familiar ritual with consistent bookends, though the middle space varies in length and scope.

From the opening of the front door and scattering our luggage across the floor, to finding a place for hundreds of items that eventually show up wrapped in cardboard, it’s never really home until the art is hung up.

Stacked in a corner until we are ready, frames of varying sizes wait until a carpenter can help us drill bearings into the concrete walls. This ensures minimal damage to property and makes sure something doesn’t fall off in the middle of the night.

We have a few treasured masterpieces, including a black and white drawing my parents gave us of a Balinese landscape. It fits perfectly in this living room between the accent lights. In the dining room is another gift from a dear friend: a gorgeous mural you simply must ask me about if you come visit.

There’s the painted organ pipe that was a gift from the artist’s daughter, a friend, for descendants connected to the organ. My 3rd-great-grandfather, Joseph H. Ridges, built the tabernacle organ on Temple Square in Salt Lake City in the 1860s. Despite multiple rebuilds, its now 11,000+ pipes include many of his originals.

We have maps of ancient maps New Zealand and Norway, art prints from Jaipur and Delhi, scenes from Cambodia, Laos, Yemen, and Morocco. Then there’s the canvas prints.

It started as one and now includes five (soon six): a single 16x20 canvas that captures each of our overseas posts. I search through 10’s of 1000’s of photos to find the 14 or so that showcase: the places, things and experiences that were meaningful to us there, and a picture of each of us that embodies that season of our lives. It’s fun to unveil the newest one, which reminds me: there’s an empty nail waiting for Dhahran’s. Here I go again: how do I capture 3 years in 14 photos?

What is the summum bonum of our existence? When we look back, not over mere chapters but on our life as a whole, what will make the canvas? When we sift through 10’s of 1000’s of memories, what will we hang on our walls of eternity?

A few days ago, our oldest son completed his first marathon. He started training with a friend and rediscovered his love of running. Working incredibly hard to fit long runs into his busy college schedule, he pushed through knee pain, exhaustion, and personal setbacks. We cheered him on via the app from a distance, and I was thankful he had my parents and his sister there to welcome him across the finish line. I’m crazy proud of him! When we later talked through each of his splits, how he felt along the way, race day logistics, and his sense of accomplishment, he said something that surprised me.

“The training has been the best part.”

The training? Not running across the finish line? Not the cheers along the way? No, the training. The early morning and late night runs that pushed him towards his goal and brought him enjoyment and satisfaction.

A day later, I completed what felt like my own marathon: my finished memoir manuscript! 85255 words, 258 Google Docs pages. Done!

Of course, it’s not DONE DONE. And there’s the bit about finding a publisher and getting it out into the world. But, my writing is complete and that feels like a major milestone worth noting. As I typed the final word, I dropped my head onto the keyboard and was completely overcome with emotion. Tears flowed and I could barely breathe through my soul’s exhaustion.

I sat down at my dining room table on a cold, cloudy day in Frankfurt on January 14, 2020, before the world shut down and Googled what font I should use and how I should format a manuscript. I wondered, What should I call it? What should I write? How should I break it up? What should the general framework be? Mostly…Will anyone even care?

Everything begins somewhere. Dozens of iterations since–and the blood, sweat, and tears of a painful process–has gotten it to where it is today.

I’ll spend this weekend in NYC with a stellar lineup of publishers, agents, editors, and writers who are now like family after spending every two weeks together over Zoom this past year. To be surrounded by incredibly accomplished humans who believe in me is like that grandfather’s embrace at the end of the finish line. They, along with supportive family and friends and anyone reading this, have my back and will propel me forward through what is now to come.

I don’t know what the future holds for my book or anything else, but I do know this: the writing of it has transformed me. Sorting through years of memories, I’ve highlighted those worth hanging up. My soul has been enlarged through the process and I’ve seen my life through a fresh lens. The writing, the training, the journey–it’s been the best part.

Still, you better believe, that when my book arrives, bound and printed, I will collapse into the arms of those I love in sheer race day elation.

Perhaps, I’ll even frame it and hang it on the wall.

I found this picture of my family recently when sorting through old photos. It was in my Aunt Connie’s stuff so she must be behind the lens. I had never seen it before and immediately loved it.

Why?

The tire, blown out and shredded, front and center. The trusty spare, dug out from underneath the bags and suitcases (did we really all use handled suitcases for so many years?). The grassy side of a random road on a day no one remembers. The Ford Econoline Club Wagon van. Us 4 kids oblivious, unconcerned. We even had our shoes on and smiled for the photo, except Dad who was focused on getting us back on the road.

My eyes are immediately drawn to Mom in the background. I’m sure she wasn’t thrilled, but she’s taking it in, going with it, surrendering. I know that feeling. Outwardly calm but inwardly running through the ticker: is everyone safe? Do we have enough water? Will the spare hold? How much longer do we need to go? How much will a new tire cost?

Later, when we’re all tucked in wherever we were headed, I imagine my parents exhaling a sigh of grateful relief that we made it, that the blowout didn’t result in an accident, and that it all worked out ok in the end.

Making life happen on a daily basis is a hero’s journey. It takes heroic efforts–seldom praised but always needed. Often unseen but deeply appreciated.

It takes a lot to start over, to do life, to keep things rolling along.

We have been in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, for three weeks today. On the one hand, this is the smoothest move in our twenty years in the Foreign Service. Our belongings, trucked 5 hours from Dhahran where we lived for three years, showed up the morning after we arrived. I was still jet-lagged and didn’t know the flow of the house well enough to tell the movers where to take things. Our car is here and we’re not stranded like usual. We have cell phone plans and know what foods to get at the grocery stores. We’ve mostly unpacked and our house feels comfortable, though we’re still waiting to hang our art and reconfigure some things, but we’re close. It’s amazing. Usually it is months before we get to this point. We are very blessed.

On the other hand, it’s still a major move and is hard. Addie has started a new school, is making new friends, and navigating an entirely new system. She’s an absolute champ, but there is also sadness and loss. We are meeting new people and learning how things operate differently here. There have been some tears all the way around, but we’re doing it. We’re trying. Starting over takes a lot, again and again.

Riyadh has 8 million people, four times more than where we were. Roads are crazy, with erratic driving at excessive speeds and gridlocked traffic patterns. It’s no surprise we have one of the highest accident rates in the world. Addie has a long commute to school, about a half hour in the morning and an hour coming home (though the last few days it’s taken her almost two hours to get home due to unannounced road closures). Not fun.

The new Riyadh Metro opened late last year and it is smooth, even though it doesn’t connect incredibly well to where we live. Still, I intend to use it as much as possible for a little more freedom to get around. It is the world's longest driverless metro system with 85 gorgeous stations across the city and apparently it serves 1M+ people daily. You can even pay double the price ($2.65) to sit in First Class if you’re feeling important. Family class with the women and children was just fine for me.

The area where we live has a long trail around it. It’s dusty and still extremely hot (though not humid like Dhahran on the coast), but I am very happy to have a trail to walk. It has already become sacred space for me, a time to connect with heaven and take a breather. I anticipate many conversations along this trail.

Creating home anywhere is easy to say and much harder to do. It involves countless hours of behind-the-scenes preparation, persistence, and dedication to family and self.

Yet, when we’re all tucked in at the end of the day, like in my parents tire mishap years ago, all will somehow be well. We will find our feet, figure things out, and make space for new people and experiences. Our adult children far away will also be ok, figure out their hard things, and they will be better for it.

Life may not often go as planned for anyone, but it may be exactly what we need.

This week we celebrated a state holiday in Utah called Pioneer Day. It commemorates the pioneer’s arrival in the Salt Lake valley on July 24, 1847, and honors their courage, grit, and perseverance. We attended the Days of ‘47 parade downtown, made dinner for all four of my children and my parents, and walked to Liberty Park for a drone show that lit up the sky with local icons. It’s always nice to reflect on my heritage and traditions.

Recently, I went through a bunch of boxes at my parents’ house. These belonged to my aunt Connie, who passed away in December 2023. She had already sorted through things when she married for the first time in her 60s, and in recent years when they downsized to an assisted living facility.

Hence, the contents in these boxes represented an intentional curation, with items carefully selected and stored for decades. Sifting through them was a peek into Connie’s mind and heart, a look at not only what she chose to keep but why.

Connie never birthed children of her own, so she claimed my siblings and I. Like the photo above, she kept and hung up many photos of us. We mattered to her. She liked to travel and her photos reflected memories with people and places all over the world.

She led a life in academia as a professor of Physical Education in a male-dominated career. Some of her early teaching evaluations showed her grit in standing up for herself in the department and paving her way forward. She was strong and determined.

These boxes also held many treasures from my parents and grandparents that had been passed through the decades:

• Grandpa’s dance cards with girls’ names written in with the attached tiny pencil.

• Grandma’s personalized invitations to each Girls’ Social Club event after school

• The typed letter 16-year-old Grandpa wrote to Grandma inviting her to walk home with him after school. “I know this letter will thrill you through and through. Hurry up, get your coat on and let’s go.” They married at age 17 the following year.

• Mom as a child in 1951, wearing a white dress and riding a tricycle with neighbor kids.

• Grandparents as babies, toddlers, teens, and joyful new parents.

• Grandma’s tithing slips where she regularly paid 25 cents to a church she didn’t attend much but cared about.

• Grandpa’s Navy dog tags. There’s a picture of him in his Navy uniform standing in front of the very house (his dad built and my sister now owns) where I’m staying now for the summer.

Some photos, like Grandma during her teenage years wearing a cloche hat, are filled with hope and promise. Others, like the photos a friend took of Grandma not long before her passing, show the effects of a life well-lived. Decades flashed before me as I digitized hundreds of photos, letters, cards, albums, and scrapbooks. (P.S. if you want to use great equipment for free, visit your nearest Family Search library)

It’s not just the people that sparked emotion but also the items in the background. The floral sofa. Corded yellow phone in the kitchen. Homemade birthday cakes with melting candles. Grandpa as a young boy standing in front of a Model T Ford (he later was a partner at the Henry S. Day Ford Dealership where he worked for 29 years).

Yesterday, we visited two cemeteries where we have ancestors buried. We took a few moments to remember, reflect, and honor their lives. How I wish we could sit on the front porch on a warm evening, as I’ve recently been able to do with all of my children, and ask them questions about their lives, their hearts, their dreams, and what they wish they could pass down.

As summer wraps up, we’ll soon return to Saudi and enter a home we haven’t stepped into yet. Part of organizing the chaos will include sorting through hundreds of boxes of belongings and making decisions of what to keep and what not to.

Somehow, through the ages, the process of choosing to hold on to some things while letting go of others hasn’t changed much. We hold on, we pass down, we try to remember and fear we may forget.

Our resolve to live a life that matters deepens. To keep just enough that is needful and to share freely. To remember those who have gone before and to connect in meaningful ways with those we love now, in hopes the best parts of us will someday be remembered.

In our early marriage, I used to think the hardest part of moving was its manual labor (along with reversing a U-haul and lowering that unyielding silver ramp). Let us not forget the physicality of lugging boxes, bookcases, gadget-filled laundry baskets on repeat, and box springs up and down dusty stairwells. May we always remember the dollied, dented, dripping washing machine that held on tightly as we clunked it into place. Thanks be to family and friends who stepped up, stepped into, and stepped over our messes.

Now that those days are behind us and legit professionals do our heavy lifting, I’ve since realized it’s also hard to watch them because it means the ending of one chapter in preparation for another.

A stream of movers arrived yesterday and they scurried to find their paths. One on kitchen, one on this bedroom, one on the storage space under the stairs, one on books, and the crew leader to handle paperwork and direct traffic.

They were unstoppable, efficient, courteous, and asked me when they had questions. One asked about our Bali landscape pencil art my parents gifted us.

“Is this Thailand? Vietnam?” he wondered. “It’s beautiful.”

One made sure to point out his cleverness in labeling the boxes from Addie’s room: G/R for “girl’s room.”

“You’ll know where to put it,” he said.

We calculated this is roughly our 15th move during our 20 years in the Foreign Service. It’s also our closest move just 4 hours away, from Dhahran in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia to the capital in Riyadh. Yet, just like packing for a weekend is often the same as a week, the fact that our things will be trucked instead of shipped doesn’t change the process. It does, however, mean I won’t have to wait as long until I see these items again. And we get to pack things we still need in the car, which normally needs to be completely empty and have less than a quarter tank of gas to be loaded into a container.

So, how have I forgotten, perhaps like childbirth, what a sensory experience moving is?

Sounds: the cacophony of screeching packing tape rolls as they assemble and seal thudding boxes against the marble floor, crinkling of packing paper, drilling off desk legs, yelling directions in Bengali and Hindi, popping of packing bubbles underfoot, the dining table chairs scraping the floor since I packed up their socks.

Smells: the vinegar-y packing tape glue, many bodies in a confined space that isn’t a bad smell but a…not-us smell, like meerkats who use their scent glands to identify members not of their mob. Someone else handling items that suddenly feel intimate, mine, not for strangers: measuring cups, laundry detergent, dishcloths, the few napkins left on the table, crumbs falling from the toaster, and my nightstand reading.

Taste: chalky dust stirred up from the shadowlands under beds, behind couches, forgotten corners, and floor rugs.

Touch: raw fingertips from wringing out wet rags to wipe down empty cupboards, washing containers in the fridge so they can be packed up, stripping down beds, sorting toiletry remains, and triaging the pantry.

Sight: the blending of all color into a tonal palette of browns and tans–cardboard, tape, and packing paper–that covers every surface. Everything has been leveled into inanimate shapes, the life sucked right out of them. Even the heat outside will suffocate them. Bare white walls are jarring, a single screw reminding what once was.

I walk to sit down on my stool in the kitchen but it’s been packed, along with Addie’s Chem notebook she needs to study for her test tomorrow. This stool, worth nothing yet everything, has seen the world with us. It boosted small bakers beside me while we rolled out dough or filled muffin cups, and steadies me when those now-tall children aren’t home and I need to reach something. While we have many other places to sit more comfortably, I often perch in the kitchen’s corner to take a grounded pause. It’s heard a few prayers and caught several tears. And now, from the bottom of a box, it waits for a new corner.

The nationalities of our movers tell a story of nuance, cultural norms, and struggle. My husband pointed out where they have been from:

• In Dhahran, from Bangladesh

• In Frankfurt, from Poland

• In India, from Nepal

• In Iraq, from Kurdistan

• In Sydney, from Syria and Lebanon

• In Djibouti, from Yemen

• In Washington, D.C. from Venezuela, El Salvador, Guatemala

One man told us today during a short break, while he sat dangling his legs where the TV used to be, of his three children (ages 8–13) and wife in Bangladesh. He’s worked here for 12 years to send his income to them, goes home to visit every two years, and is able to video call with them often.

I am so blessed. Our house, stuff, employment. All of it.

The complexities of global disparity are far beyond my scope here. I’m also mindful of many friends and colleagues who are facing similar packouts this season but because of recent RIF’s they are forced to make difficult decisions and have no job waiting for them on the receiving end. Many others mourn the sudden loss of their homes in natural disasters or political unrest. My heart aches for them.

After the movers left on the first day and I was cleaning up the debris, Addie noticed a single white puzzle piece behind a bookcase. It must have fallen off my puzzle table when I was working on the sky of Hendrick Avercamp’s Winter Landscape with Ice Skaters. I ran out of time to finish it, so I didn’t notice it was missing.

That puzzle has been sent into storage in Elso, Belgium, until we see it in 5-7 years when we retire. Where should I keep it, this jigsawed story of my life in a single piece?

This morning, I made scrambled eggs in my Le Creuset cast iron pan, the only one I kept behind. Someone else had cereal in a large Tupperware bowl with a plastic spoon. There’s the laundry and shower curtain still drying, a few cleaning supplies but no vacuum, odds and ends in the fridge and freezer, and bags slumped on the ground without their canisters.

This is life deconstructed, the middle, where we sleep on random pillows, live out of suitcases, and wait to reassemble a new life on the other side at the end of summer.

There’s always one last box the movers leave open until the bitter end while we scour cupboards, under beds, and open drawers to find anything else we’ve forgotten…or forever hold our tablecloth. Half full, they cut the box down, seal it with last screeches of tape, and close up the truck.

I watch our belongings, tucked in like Tetris pieces, drive away and I return inside to an empty living room.

These walls still echo the voices of people who have filled them. Like Elsa, I feel like “everyone I've ever loved is here within these walls.” As I step into my own unknown, I get to take what I’ve become and add to it.

Somehow in the exhausting undoing of a life bit by bit, I’m more grateful for all the parts that have birthed a beautiful whole.

Apparently, I’ve taken over 500 photos of tulips in recent years. While not a floricultural expert, I absolutely love them. Their vibrant variety is stunning and I never tire of their silent strength.

When we lived in Frankfurt, I had the opportunity to visit Keukenhof twice within just a few weeks. I spent hours walking through one of the largest iconic flower gardens in the world. For 75 years, Keukenhof has showcased Dutch flower bulb growers as a live catalog, hosting over a million visitors during its 8-week Spring season (source).

I rode a bike connecting nearby Dutch flower fields, feeling a bit like Mary Poppins as I jumped into paintings that had come to life. Row after row of colorful tulips stretched as far as I could see. Carefully (and with permission), I viewed them up close, feeling very small as I gazed out all around me.

How do tulips grow into such beautiful works of art? Quietly.

From my limited AI-assisted research, it seems tulips spend the majority of their life underground. It takes about 6-8 months from planting to bloom, and cool winter dormancy is essential for a healthy bloom. They are incredibly resilient across soil types and climates, and often emerge as the first buds that push through frost or even snow. Depending on the species and weather, tulips generally only bloom for 1-2 weeks.

As I think of another repotting soon–wrapping up our life in Dhahran and preparing to start another in Riyadh–I am especially reflective this May as we celebrate some major milestones.

What processes take place inside of me, unseen yet vital, that contribute to a brief but vibrant bloom?

I recently turned 50 the same week that my daughter graduated from university and my husband achieved 20 years in the Foreign Service. What have we gained across all of these years and experiences, these periods of dormant growth and seasons of celebratory bloom?

One treasure accumulated is global friendships and connections that span countries, faith traditions, and diverse cultures. While we often don’t have the luxury of time over many years, friendships we’ve cultivated during short stints are deeply meaningful to us and hard to leave behind.

Extensive recent lab work issued me a biological age that’s 13 years younger than my actual age. I admit, this feels even better than my Wii Fit age. But, regardless of what comes next for me or those I love, I trust–like the quote I was given by a Sunday School teacher when I was 11–that I will bloom where I’m planted. In equally true cliché fashion, I will weather the storms, fight the good fight, and dust off when I fall.

As I continue to ready my memoir manuscript for publication, I hope its message shines through of cultivating home and nurturing belonging across ever-shifting terrain. It extends a call, an invitation, to foster inner stability in an unpredictable world. Writing is a lonely and vulnerable craft, but growth is quietly happening. I trust in the unseen, unglamorous processes that continue to shape my life into something beautiful.

What scares, emboldens. What challenges, stretches. What nearly breaks, strengthens.

May we keep planting bulbs within, trusting the unseen but essential growth, and celebrating all periods of vibrant blooms along the way.

[We have many new readers here. Welcome!]

This picture was taken by an event photographer at Lucinda Literary’s Mastermind I recently attended in NYC. I love it. Inspired by a weekend filled with practical tips and connections with agents, publishers, editors, and other writers, I look happy, eager, and filled with determination to face my road ahead.

I wore it for the first time to a community event the other night, as a dare and an invitation. It worked. Several people stopped me, one of whom was a dear friend. We briefly talked about the usual things–updates on our families, shared church responsibilities, travel plans–and then he asked me about my book.

After I shared some of its main themes and challenges, he asked, “Do you have a title?”

'“Yes,” I said. “A working title.”

I told him of this mockup cover I created with the help of Canva’s AI editor that helps me visualize its publication. As both a creative mind and a hobby gardener, he shared with me a story.

“I learned something about repotting once,” he started.

He told me about a vine that wasn’t doing what they wanted it to and what they tried instead. A seed was planted in my mind and I germinated it all night. By morning, its radicle was taking hold. I knew exactly where I would use it to piece together a concept I had been struggling with.

That conversation wouldn’t have happened without this shirt. It made me wonder about the conversations, spoken and unspoken, that bind us.

On a plane, I recently watched Wilding (2023), a documentary about a couple in West Sussex who abandoned conventional farming practices to allow nature to take over their estate. It was fascinating. I learned that plants share a "wood wide web" or mycorrhizal network with extensive communicative abilities underground. This hidden connection can stretch for miles and support many plants and trees.

What if we invited others into parts of our lives that are interesting and that matter? Even the trivial can shed light on our unique realities.

Ask me about my…

• eSIMs: I have so many on my phone that I often need to delete one before adding another, as many countries I frequent don’t participate in a global eSIM.

• Xe: The number of currencies on my shortlist that I routinely convert save my fading math skills.

• Medical claims: Even for a healthy family with no major medical challenges, managing dental, ortho, routine, and occasional Rx needs across borders, currencies, and bank accounts is enough to warrant a large spreadsheet.

• Google Maps saved places: I keep dozens of annotated lists of cities around the world so that I can remember that one artisan factory in Amman or favorite döner in Malta. Fun fact: I’m a Level 6 Local Guide and like to review small businesses during our travels.

• Luggage: My packing ratio is generally 80% food, 10% clothes, 10% household supplies. I max out my weight with olive oil, frozen cheeses, nuts, hemp seeds, quinoa, holiday baking supplies, school supplies, and upcoming birthday gifts. If things are available wherever I live, they have a much higher price tag. I boast ninja-level organizational skills in the oldest, ugliest collection of suitcases and duffle bags that have SEEN things in their time.

• Calendar: Another exercise in multiple conversions so I don’t miss meetings, webinars, and calls with friends and families.

• Kitchen scale: Stick butter is not readily available outside of the U.S., so for years I have memorized weighed conversions from grams to cups.

• Public transportation: This is my method of choice anywhere we go. Figuring out routes, fares, passes, and connections is a regular part of my life. European train station boards excite me. Uber equivalents are an occasional luxury, but why sit comfortably when you can lug your suitcase through rain and up station stairs?

It gets harder, denser, more layered. We’d both need to pull up a chair.

Ask me about my…

• worries that keep me up

• pride in each of my children as they emerge as amazing humans despite their individual challenges

• nutrition choices and how I adapt in a variety of places and time zones

• heart as it has watched 1000s of blind people see again

• grief that pulses through me in unprecedented waves

• an invisible disability that affects every single aspect of my life

• fears for our future, our employment, my nation

• adoption story and how grateful I am for a child I didn’t birth but love fiercely

• faith that strengthens and sustains me

What’s on your shirt?

What’s something I could ask you about to learn something interesting about your life, or something weighing on you that we could talk through?

Shirt or not, what if we started somewhere a little deeper and invited others in? What would change if we asked and actually listened?

“A linchpin in the tree-fungi networks are hub trees. Also referred to as ‘mother trees,’ these are the older, more seasoned trees in a forest. Typically, they have the most fungal connections. Their roots are established in deeper soil, and can reach deeper sources of water to pass on to younger saplings. Through the mycorrhizal network, these hub trees detect the ill health of their neighbors from distress signals, and send them needed nutrients.” National Forest Foundation site

As a mother, I love nature’s invitation to stand tall in deep soil as a beacon for others, watching for distress signals from those around us so we can send nutrients.

Whatever our capacity and roles in a world full of need, may we be ready to sustain and to connect in unanticipated ways.

I climbed up 10 stories to the pedestal of the Statue of Liberty today, my first time back in 40 years. Asking the kind park ranger at the top what had changed since then, he pulled out some laminated photographs and walked me through her upgrades and reinforcements, here a walkway, there an elevator.

The changes in my life since then seem equally monumental.

A gift of friendship from the people of France to the United States, The Statue of Liberty Enlightening the World is recognized as a universal symbol of freedom and democracy. It was dedicated by President Grover Cleveland on October 28, 1886. Designated as a National Monument in 1924, employees of the National Park Service have been caring for the Statue of Liberty since 1933. ~ nps.gov

Walking around Liberty and Ellis Island grounded me in the roots of our democracy, reminding me of my ancestors and others who left their homelands and came to the United States. From sacred ground, I stared into their faces and reflected on their arduous journeys to carve out a new life for them and their families. The diversity and dreams they brought with them have made our nation stronger.

Memory of Time

A few days ago I spent four hours in the 9/11 Memorial and Museum looking at artifacts, reading first-hand accounts, reviewing timelines on the ground and in the air, and remembering victims and heroes. It was an emotional journey. The passage of time was evident in dated hairstyles and wardrobes, coil phone cords, and recovered hard floppy disks. Photos of people looking up to the sky, mouths agape, did not show a single phone filming. The few mobile phones pictured were flip phone bricks.

Each of the letters in Roman poet Virgil’s quote were forged from pieces of recovered World Trade Center steel. The plaque accompanying this installation states that the blacksmith, Tom Joyce, was “invited to harness the transformative process that occurs when iron is touched by fire. He took wounded, remnant steel–made of iron and carbon–and forged it, by heating and folding, into letters of hope and beauty. The result reminds us that Virgil’s words are not just a statement; they are a promise.”

It’s been almost 25 years since that tragedy and the transformation in my own life and in the world at large are staggering.

Waves of Life

Life has come lately in waves—hard and beautiful—with barely a breath between. I’m still finding my sea legs from navigating such vastly different experiences.

Roses

• Being Ma and Pa at a youth conference held in Bahrain, where ~100 teens attended from regional cities to perform service, learn leadership and social skills, have fun, and strengthen their relationship with God and each other.

• Capturing another outreach in Ghana with Daybreak Vision Project, where we performed 950+ surgeries for those in greatest need. It was a real treat to serve alongside my daughter Bronte and introduce her to a place and people I love. Watching her be such an incredible human inspired me.

• Chaperoning our group of teens across borders to attend For Strength of Youth conference in Jordan on the Dead Sea. 250 youth attended who live in 12 countries (Morocco, Oman, UAE, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Bahrain, Israel, Tunisia). 28 nationalities across 6 continents were represented, and 21 languages were spoken among young adult volunteers.

• Attending Lucinda Literary’s Mastermind program in New York was an opportunity that lit me up with possibility and focus. We workshopped sample chapters, bounced around ideas, and connected with industry professionals (editors, publishers, publicists, authors, agents) who were genuine and delightful. Springtime flowers were a bonus.

Thorns

• Grieving the tragic loss of my younger brother in November. I’m still processing my feelings around his death as grief wields its way through my soul in unanticipated ways.

• Helping my son face an unanticipated turn of events. He had been serving as a volunteer for our church in Liberia and needed urgent medical care. Within days, he was on one plane and I was on another to meet him. He is receiving treatment at my parents’ home for now, though it’s a slower and more frustrating timeline than any of us would like (him especially). It’s been hard to be so far away.

• Preparing to pack up our home of 3 years in Dhahran and move to Riyadh. While some logistics will be easier since it’s only 4 hours away, it will still be a new school and church community and a big move, especially for our youngest daughter who will attend 11^th and 12^th grades there.

• Grappling with many decisions made by political leaders in my home country. I feel unable to safely express what I’d like to about so many issues, and it’s a new sense of homelessness, loneliness, and betrayal. Many dear friends and colleagues have lost jobs and we wonder daily if ours is next. Programs that save lives have lost funding and expertise, and friendships built over many years between nations have been damaged, possibly severed. The political divide in my extended family has been complicated. My nation’s very underpinnings are being tested.

It’s all been a lot.

Yet, there is much good, as there always is. A village of caring friends and neighbors have rallied around us, especially while I’ve been gone suddenly and repeatedly. I treasure being healthy. My faith and perspective continue to be a foundational, hopeful force in my life.

These words inspired by Isaiah calm me:

This morning, I looked across the foggy New York Harbor and wondered if I could see anything. Yet, there she stood, as the plaque read, “a beloved friend, a living symbol of freedom to millions around the world, her strong arm holding the torch high.”

Still, she stands and so can we–must we.

Like her oxidized green protective layer that is made more beautiful by exposure to storms and elements–and like the forging of iron by fire–we too can shine. With faith, confidence, and strength we can face our individual, family, and collective struggles.

Whatever land we come from and whatever battles we face, may we echo the resilience of The Star-Spangled Banner:

Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there,
O say does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free and the home of the brave

This is the country I believe in, the country I am proud of even when it is less recognizable.

May we carry our torches in strength and, rain or shine–stand.

An article I wrote was just published in the Deseret News. As a writer, publication is always a reason to celebrate–hooray! I’d love you to read it.

Some stories, however, are hard to write and even harder to live. This was one of those.

When I started writing my memoir just before COVID brought the world to a halt, I intended to share my journey of raising children in various countries. Inspired to capture stories that might be lost if I didn’t tell them, I wanted my children to know not only their stories but mine.

What font should a book manuscript use? I Googled. How to format a cover page?

Without knowing how much I didn’t know, I started typing in double-spaced 12-point Times New Roman.

In the five years and 100s of writing hours since, I can attest to what my writing mentor often shares:

“Memoir is the single greatest portal to self discovery.

~ Marion Roach Smith

As I wrote and researched, spaced and returned, took classes and received feedback from professionals, a clear framework emerged. Constructing its deep-rooted footings, reinforcing joists, and stabilizing trusses worked up a sweat. From the initial blueprints and scaffolding, the protective sheathing covering my idea began to take shape. I just wasn’t sure if it could bear the weight of a message that was never meant to remain within those four walls.

But first, I needed to dig deeper, to go back before I could go forward.

With more vulnerability than I was ready for, I excavated some bedrock experiences of my early years to discover how they formed me. While I wouldn’t tell the brick-by-brick version, I couldn’t gloss over the gaping scar.

And so, this article was born. I shared some of my research with my husband over Lebanese food one night and said, “The stories we hand down shape us. What we are told and what happened to us matters. Whatever the truth is, all sides lose something when a building is destroyed.”

“There’s your story,” he said. “Write it down.”

I started that very week. After months of research and writing, I enlisted the help of an editor to help me polish it up. Striking the right balance–capturing the pain my family experienced while also deliberately choosing to not throw known community members under the bus–was a fine balance.

I’m really proud of how it turned out.

“While I never recovered what was lost as a child, through intentional and cyclical repotting since, I have created space for deeper growth. Perhaps we can find that space only once our past has been cleared.

The space created inside of us — cultivated with unanticipated soils — can honor the past while cementing future pathways.”

~ Gretel Patch, Perspective: What we lose when we lose old buildings

Thanks for being part of my journey.

Subscribe now

This At Home Anywhere newsletter is reader-supported. If you enjoyed it, consider helping this message of cultivating home anywhere reach a wider audience. Thanks for reading!

I mailed off an envelope at my local DHL office this morning, a seemingly mundane task not worth writing about, an errand in the sea of errands. Yet, here I am writing about it.

Why? Because it reminded me how far I’ve come.

We have lived in the Eastern Province of Saudi Arabia for 2.5 years. Not long after we moved here, I needed a Ghanaian visa so I could join another cataract outreach with Daybreak Vision Project. I knew from my previous visits that visas to Ghana are tricky, even for U.S. citizens who apply from the U.S. For me, living in a third country of Germany at the time, it was even more complicated. Where to even begin in Saudi?

The Ghanaian Embassy is located, as embassies are, in the capital: Riyadh. This was a 4+hour drive or an hour flight away, with many days if not weeks of waiting in between drop off and pick up. Mailing in my paperwork was the only viable option.

I muddled through their website, ticked all the boxes, attached and printed a small mountain of paperwork (hotel reservation, invitation letter, bank statement, IDs, flight itinerary, sponsor info, etc.)

But how to send it all? Because they stamp an actual visa rather than issue an e-visa, I needed to mail in my passport. I wasn’t sure how to do this safely and wanted to get it right.

I spent half a morning in thick heat, wearing an abaya (not technically mandated but I felt more comfortable with it) and following Google Maps to a few shipping offices. One wouldn’t send passports. A few locations were randomly closed. At a DHL office not far from home, the clerk was kind and walked me through the process. They had a set rate for visa/passport courier services and he typed, tabbed, and printed. It all took an hour, but I sealed the envelope and paid.

“You’re going to take care of my passport, right? I’m going to get it back?”

“Yes,” he replied. “in-shaa'-Allah.”

I didn’t sleep much until it came back a few weeks later, stamped and valid. Success.

When it came time to renew, some rules had changed and the DHL office had moved, but eventually: success.

Today as I renewed again, I had confidence in myself and in the process. I didn’t need Google Maps, knew which annexed street avoided the messy intersection I still hate, parked down the road a bit and walked. I knew exactly what to ask for, was already in the system, and was in and out within 15 minutes.

“Be safe out there, passport,” I muttered to the wind as I walked back to my car. “Come home again.”

Something I heard quoted in church many years ago has stayed with me. It’s often attributed to Ralph Waldo Emerson:

“That which we persist in doing becomes easier for us to do — not that the nature of the thing is changed, but that our power to do it is increased.”

Spending a few years at a time in foreign countries has provided me daily, tangible ways to see this play out in my life.

What initially overwhelms me, becomes my new normal. What I fear, I slowly embrace. What challenges me, stretches me. What nearly breaks me, strengthens me.

It’s also true in matters of the soul.

In November, my younger brother Noah passed away tragically. His loss devastated my family as we have grappled with unknowns, hard things, and questions we may never resolve. In all the pain, we have grown closer together, celebrated his life in meaningful ways, and repaired bridges long overdue.

It’s understood in memoir that a writer can’t adequately share an experience while still living it. Enough time and distance needs to pass in order to glean perspective and to become something. Despite all that I have felt the last two months–the divine tutoring, deepened relationships, and heavenly insights–it’s too soon to capture it. My few attempts have ended in puddles, like removing my hiking boots before the journey’s end, my bare sole cut apart by the rocky terrain.

I will write about it, just not yet. Until then, and as a new year dawns, I look to each and every step ahead: even the steep ones that cause me to slow down, stumble, and re-examine my path forward.

I am pushing through the final writing stretch of my memoir and determining next steps. While tempted to quit many times over the past few years, I will not give up and have dug deep for courage. I believe in my message and I need to do this, even though it hasn’t gotten easier…yet.

I recently wrote to my son in Liberia and I am taking my own advice: Keep going, keep your chin up, keep showing up as only you can and in whatever place you are. I invite you to take some time to reflect, look back at 2024 and ahead to 2025. Let’s create the life we want to live, love each other well, and be the good we want to see in this world.

May we persist in the doing so we may ultimately become.

This At Home Anywhere newsletter is reader-supported. If you enjoyed it, consider helping this message of cultivating home anywhere reach a wider audience. Thanks for reading!